


Growing Pains

by aliceihavebeen



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adopted Children, Established Relationship, Family, Godparents, M/M, Post-Canon, S8? don't know her, Sheith New Year, Uncle Keith, gaurdian angel Kosmo, mentions of death and terrorism, uncle shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 01:36:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17295194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliceihavebeen/pseuds/aliceihavebeen
Summary: Every time Keith sees Shiro around children, it pulls at something deep in his chest. They flock to Shiro, typically terrified of Keith. After years of working together in their humanitarian efforts, and becoming kickass uncles along the way, Shiro and Keith find themselves responding to a distress call from a moon colony that was under attack. When they get there though, there doesn't seem to be any survivors. At least not until Kosmo uncovers a secret well.





	Growing Pains

**Author's Note:**

> Day 3: Family  
> At this point, I think we can all acknowledge that I am a late poster.  
> Not inspired by a song, surprisingly.  
> Not S8 canon compliant- it is post S8 but without all the bullshit so like the rest of my fics, Allura is alive and Curtis who?  
> This isn't proofed because I literally cannot keep my eyes open. So sorry about that. I'll try to come back and edit away stupid mistakes tomorrow.

It started when Keith was going over the general restoration plans on a planet that had previously been a Galra stronghold. It had been a long day, and constantly going over and over schematics and details and treaties… after a certain point, it was inevitable that his attention would waver. Shiro had been helping transport construction materials all day, needing a break from the stiff position of ambassador for the Coalition of United Planets (Lance had stated on multiple occasions that calling the organization CUP was dumb and they should think of something catchier but it had already stuck). 

Keith was pretending to be interested in the intricacies of the historic landmarks that were pointed out to him, but the sound of deep laughter caught his ear. He looked for the sound and spotted Shiro. He had four or five kids hanging off his arms like a barrel of monkeys. The cutest part was to impress them he had three on his normal arm, two on his revamped prosthesis that Allura had updated with the help of Pidge and Dr. Holt. It no longer was detached and floating like the arm Sendak had. Which was kind of the main point of the revamp. It resembled the arm he had from the Galra, but with far more Earth and Altean mechanical influences.

Keith had to bite his lip when he watched as Shiro started spinning the small children, all five giggling like crazy. It loosened something in his chest, watching Shiro play with the kids. It had been a while since Keith had seen Shiro look that genuinely care-free. Kids always seemed to flock to Shiro though. Keith wasn’t sure if it had more to do with his massive size or his general goofy and kind disposition. Keith tended to have the opposite effect. Typically kids ran crying from him whenever he attempted to interact with them. 

The second time it happened, they were on a different planet, helping rebuild homes. Keith had his hair pulled back in a ponytail and a small clip pinning his bangs back against the top of his head. He wiped the sweat that quickly accumulated on his forehead in the sweltering tropical climate. He was finishing up the last of the roof paneling when he saw it. A young mother was struggling with three children, all while trying to deliver food to the workers.

“Here, let me help you, ma’am.” Shiro said with a genuine smile. She stared at him for a moment, sizing him up, but easily handed over the smallest child that she had been attempting to balance on her hip while handing out food with the other arm. 

The soft gaze that settled over Shiro’s features as he bounced the child, talking softly to it was enough to melt Keith’s heart and cause a tug of pain in his chest. That same day, as they sat in the massive tent that held four large families and the workers winding down by listening to the stories told by the elders of the group Shiro managed to attract another flock of children. They all wanted to sit next to him or on him. One little girl that was balanced on his thigh had wrapped her tiny hand around Shiro’s index and middle finger, sleeping soundly with the most peaceful look on her lavender face. 

It had taken almost a year for Keith to wrap his mind around the fighting being over, and the fact that he and Shiro no longer had to put their feelings for one another on hold because of the imminent war. The war was over. The universe was healing. Team Voltron had gone their separate ways, but they all stayed in touch. So when the thought entered Keith’s mind, a single image of him and Shiro raising a child together, his brain almost short-circuited. They had never talked about it, but maybe they should. Shiro was great with kids. Keith, not so much. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t learn. And he’d always heard it was different when it was your own children. But how? When? Where? 

Keith paused, realizing now wasn’t the time, so he packed those thoughts away for another day.

“Keith!” Shiro yelled, busting into the cockpit of the cruiser they were traveling in with supplies, three other ships following them. The urgency in his voice immediately triggered Keith’s fight or flight, causing him to grip at the controls and brace for whatever was about to happen.

“We’re gonna be godfathers!” Shiro cheered, coming up to Keith’s side and flinching when he finally took in the tense line of Keith’s shoulders.

“Sorry, I should have delivered that differently. But I just got a message from Allura and Keith. Allura’s expecting in five months! Twins! They asked if we would like to be the godparents!” Shiro finished, wrapping his hand on Keith’s left shoulder, squeezing the tense muscle in the hopes of helping Keith relax.

“Are you serious? Twins? Two Lance’s?” Keith balked.

“Or two Allura's. Or one of each.” Shiro winked. Keith shook his head, but a smile slowly spread across his face.

“That’s so amazing. I’m happy for them. I’m kind of surprised they picked us to be the godparents.” Keith finished, eyebrows scrunching together as a singular thought that had been tucked away returned.

“Do you ever want to?” Keith started, quickly adding on after noticing the confused expression appear on Shiro’s face. “Have kids, I mean.” 

Keith didn’t know why asking this made him so nervous.

Shiro didn’t respond at first, he just looked away, thoughtful.

“Yeah. I would.” Shiro sighed. But he didn’t seem too happy in his answer, not meeting Keith’s eyes.

“I think you’d make a pretty amazing dad,” Keith said, at a loss of what else to say. Shiro smiled at him, but there was something sad at the edge of that smile. 

They didn’t talk about it again. After the first time he brought it up and watched the happiness fall from Shiro’s face, Keith was terrified to prod any deeper. He couldn’t help the sinking feeling that he was the reason for that sadness.

But Shiro proved, to no one’s surprise, to be an amazing godparent. He slipped into his role of Uncle Shiro quickly. It took Keith a bit longer. When the tiny body of Allura’s daughter was offered for him to hold, he was reluctant to hold her. But it didn’t take long for that little girl to steal his heart. Their son, however, hated Keith from the moment they met. His hair was stark white like his mothers, unlike his sister's dark brown locks. And he yelled bloody murder the second he was placed in Keith’s arms. Not silencing until he was rescued by Uncle Shiro.

They didn’t get to visit as often as they’d like, but between Allura, Lance, and Coran, they received plenty of pictures and videos of the two as they grew out of infancy and became the devilish toddlers they were doomed to become.

Keith never stopped thinking about the short conversation he’d had with Shiro years earlier. Since then they’d talked about getting married, but as long as they were needed to run relief and every so often rescue missions there was no sense or urgency. They were running one such mission when they were called to a moon colony that hadn’t respond to any hailings since the lone distress call they had sent. It was one of the few colonies this far out that was settled by a mix of species- Galra, Humans, and even two Alteans from the colonies that Lotor had saved. They worked as humanitarians from that post. 

Keith didn’t want to say it, but he had little hope in regards to this particular mission. A rogue terrorist group that they had yet to identify had been active recently in this quadrant, destroying one of the newly built relay camps that was positioned on an outcrop of meteors. All the crew that were working on the relay camp were killed, the valuable metals and tech looted. 

When they were close enough to pull up an image on the viewscreen, Keith was faced with the inevitable outcome he had feared. Smoke was rising from several burned down buildings. It looked in all manners to be a lost cause, but it was their responsibility to check for any survivors.

It was worse, far worse than it looked on the screen from far away. Only a few buildings were standing. As they walked down the lone road, they saw several bodies that had been gutted. Left to bleed out. They checked the first two buildings together, making sure there wasn’t anyone left behind to “clean up”- meaning kill anyone attempting to make a rescue and loot their supplies. But no one showed up on their scanners. No one alive.

They split up to check the last two smaller buildings. They were no bigger than a one bedroom home and sat side by side. Keith sighed, finding nothing. Kosmo, who had come down to the planet with them to aid in a hasty escape if needed began to twitch his ears. Keith watched curiously as Kosmo jerked his head to the side, sniffing the air and his ears going back on his head. Before Keith could ask him what was wrong he was bumping against Keith’s hip, flashing them to one of the burnt out buildings that had stopped burning before the rest, more cool ash than building.

Keith looked around, confused.

“What is it? Why did you bring me here?” Keith asked as the wolf sniffed the air again before he ran to a corner of the structure and began to dig. Keith ran over and crouched down as Kosmo began to whine, pawing at the odd-looking metal with a confused look.

“What did you find?” Keith asked, brushing away the ash from what he was realizing was a small trap door in the floor. When he went to pry it up, bright blue Altean symbols flashed across the metal. It came away easily after that. 

At first, Keith thought he was looking down into a small, hollow well of some sort. But as his eyes adjusted he noticed the soft glow several feet down. He looked at Kosmo, and then glanced around him, wondering if he should call for Shiro. But his curiosity got the better of him. He bent over the hole, trying to judge just how far down the glow was. It had to be four or five feet at the least.

“You better get me out of there if I get stuck.” Keith said with a sigh before laying down on his stomach and pulling himself into the hole. He bent at the torso, stretching his arms as far as he could but he wasn’t close enough. He shimmied his hips as far over the edge as he dared, digging the toe of his boots into the ground as an anchor. His hand grazed metal, and with slow, careful movements he was able to get a grip on what seemed to be a capsule. He held on tight as he slowly wormed his hips back so that he could pull himself, and the capsule out of the hole.

As soon as he lifted the capsule from the hole, his blood ran cold. 

It was an infant, no more than a few months old. It wasn’t moving, and the first and worst thing that came to Keith’s mind was that it was dead and he had just removed some dead infant from its resting place. But as he stared in shock, something caught his eye, causing the gears in his head to spin.

It was a stasis chamber. A tiny, baby sized, stasis chamber.

Keith hugged the small stasis tube to his chest, getting to his feet and finally screaming for Shiro. Kosmo flashed out of the room, only to return a moment later with Shiro.

Shiro’s solemn face went from disoriented to plain shock as he stared at the infant.

“We have to get it to the ship.” Keith said, trying to remain calm, but his voice cracked.

“How did you..” Shiro whispered.

“Kosmo flashed me here and was digging at something and when I went to look it- I don’t know. There was a door with Altean markings and it was down in some small tunnel. I just-” Keith rattled on.

Kosmo, ever the patient companion, flashed them onto the ship in the small med bay. 

“We need to get out of here. I couldn’t find any survivors, all the tech was burned. But we need to leave before whoever did this comes back to check on their handy work. I’ll-” Shiro started, staring at the small creature in Keith’s arms.

“I’ll get us out of here. I’m gonna wait to radio. Make sure we’re far enough away to get a coded message sent without interference. See if you can…” Shiro trailed off.

“I got it, you get us out of here safely.” Shiro nodded as he ran to the bridge. 

Keith didn’t want to say anything to Shiro, who was already visibly shaken, but he was terrified about whether or not this baby would be okay. They learned a long time ago to grow a thick skin when it came to search and rescue. But all of that goes out the door when children are involved. Especially an orphaned child who was apparently the lone survivor.

Keith pulled up their medical database, finding the information on Altean stasis devices and pulled together medicine, blankets, and formula out of the small onboard replicator. When he couldn’t find anything else to do in preparation, he stared at the tiny body. At first he thought it was a human baby. Several humans lived on the colony so that wouldn’t be a stretch. But as he looked closer, he saw the ever so slightly pointed ears that were tinged lavender. It had black hair that was still just coming in and had a dark purple onesie on. The baby’s skin was dark, but something about the tone didn’t look quite...human. 

He went over to the comm.

“Shiro, do you think we’re far enough away from the colony?”

“Not quite yet. In another ten minutes, I’m gonna send out the message. But the new engine upgrades are helping. We’re covering a lot more space in a lot less time.”

“Okay.”

Keith stared from the wall at the baby. Logically, he should wait. The baby was in stasis, they should wait till they could get to a medical outpost or the closest allied planet. But there was no guarantee that they could do anything for the baby. The biology would be different. And they were a long ways away from Altea.

He could shake the strong instinct to get the baby out of that tube, to hold it, to make sure it was okay. He hadn’t felt a pull like this since he first held his godchildren. And somehow it was stronger now that it even was then. He knew he’d give his life to protect the small fragile creature.

Keith took a deep breath and activated the release mechanism on the stasis tube and held his breath. He focused on breathing as he waited for what felt like an hour but was only several minutes as the process finished up and the chamber opened. For several seconds, there was nothing. Keith held his breath, ready to cry as he gingerly lifted the baby from the tube, bringing it to his chest. But finally, finally… it began to cry.

Keith held the child even closer to his chest, gently prodding at the wriggling body. No fever and nothing seemed especially painful. He grabbed the portable med kit and ran a general scan. Healthwise the baby seemed fine. Hungry, upset, but fine. It did confirm his suspicion, however, that the child was a Human-Galra hybrid, like himself. 

Shiro came flying into the medbay, his panic easing as soon as he spotted the crying baby in Keith’s arms.

“She’s fine.” Keith sighed with a sad smile. He had started subconsciously rubbing the little ears that felt like they had hair trying to sprout at the tips.

Shiro looked back and forth between the baby and Keith with a look of wonder.

“There wasn’t anything on the records about an infant on the colony.” Shiro said softly, walking over and touching the tiny hand as the baby continued to wail. It took a moment but Shiro finally seemed to notice, his eyes squinting as he took in the child’s features.

“She’s a hybrid. Like me. Human and Galra.” Keith said, catching Shiro’s gaze. 

Shiro looked gutted.

“She’s not safe.” Shiro said simply, looking back down at the child in Keith’s arms.

While they’d help bring peace to the universe, terrible things still happened. One being the trafficking of more ‘exotic’ species. Namely hybrids.

“There’s formula over there on the counter. I didn’t read the directions yet.” Keith said. Shiro looked up, catching his stare.

“I’ll fix it. Might need to check and see if she needs to be changed.”

Keith nodded, carrying the baby gingerly to the examination table, grabbing a thin blanket and laying her down on it so she wasn’t on the bare steel. He removed the onesie, finding that she did indeed need a change. Thankfully his training as Uncle Keith had prepared him for just this moment. He looked over the supplies he’d gotten together, grabbing cleaning wipes and a fresh diaper. By the time he got her onesie back on Shiro had the formula ready. Keith reluctantly passed the infant to Shiro, giving him a chance to hold the little girl as he fed her.

“We can’t let them know.” Keith said softly, heart aching at the sight.

Shiro nodded.

“I haven’t sent the message yet. We need to get her to Altea. Figure out if she has any family.” Shiro said, looking up at Keith.

Keith swallowed.

“I agree, we need to get to Altea. She’ll be a lot safer there. But…” Keith paused, taking a deep breath. “What if she doesn’t have family?”

Shiro kept staring at Keith.

“We can figure that out later.” Shiro muttered finally, looking back down at the baby.

Keith wanted to make him say it. Make him talk about it. But he realized that if the child really did have someone out there missing her, they had no right to her.

They didn’t talk about it again. It took two weeks to get to Altea. In that time they’d quickly gotten a routine down pat- taking turns with feeding, changing, and the responsibilities of the ship. Kosmo had quickly become attached to the child, often curling up around it in the makeshift crib they’d assembled. Shiro was terrified that Kosmo would suffocate the child, but Keith knew better. Kosmo was that child’s guardian angel. Kosmo had been the one to find her after all. Kosmo would protect that child with his life. 

When they docked in Altea, Allura met them in the hanger, jaw dropping when she saw Keith stepping off the ship with baby Takara in arm. 

“We need your help.” Shiro said simply.

It took a month of prodding through records and background checks before it was confirmed. Takara’s parents died on that moon. There was no record of her birth, but for obvious reasons. The only Galra lineage they could find was a terrorist that was in jail, and the two human relatives were so distant that there was no evidence they had even known the parent. 

It should have been sad, devastating to know that the child had no family to return to. But Keith was beyond relieved. He knew he and Shiro were gone for the little girl the moment they laid eyes on her, and that bond had only grown stronger over time. Even then, Keith knew he had to be the one to say it.

It had been a long day, and Shiro had just finished burping Takara, brushing the sweet fuzz of hair down her warm, baby soft scalp. Keith stood at the entrance for a moment, taking in the sight before walking in.

“It’s time for this little girl to go to sleep, huh?” He asked Takara, who yawned even as she got fussy about being separated from Shiro. They both knew Kosmo would show up in the next few minutes to calm the little girl though.

Keith reached out and grabbed Shiro’s hand, rubbing his thumb up and down the side of his left hand.

“We should adopt her.” Keith said simply. But he immediately felt Shiro’s hand jerk in his hold before it tightened to grip Keith like a lifeline.

“Should it be Takara Shirogane or Takara Kogane?” Keith asked lightly.

“Guess it depends on if either of us wants to take each other's names when we get married.” Shiro replied, gently tugging Keith closer to him. 

“Is that your way of officially asking me to marry you?” Keith said with a grin, wrapping his arms around Shiro’s neck.

“Yes.”


End file.
